Environmental conditions of an intermittent river, combined with the unforeseen results of road maintenance ignited a slow, nightmarish scenario for several residents who saw their homes buried in drifting sand in a small Mojave Desert town. The Mojave River flows for 110 miles, originating on the northern side of California's San Bernardino Mountains and typically ending in a basin at the edge of the Mojave National Preserve. The majority of the river flow is beneath the surface, though unusually wet periods will lead to the river surfacing along a larger portion of its course, as well as its terminus stretching furt ...
The International Car Forest of the Last Church On the outskirts of the mining town of Goldfield, Nevada - a population of only a couple hundred people in a town without even a gas station on Nevada's Highway 95 - is an installation that is part outsider art and part surreal junkyard called The International Car Forest of the Last Church. Though no signs will direct you there, and nothing will explain the history or motivations behind it even after you arrive, the sprawling collection of vehicles - cars, limos, busses, and delivery trucks - rise upended down a few double track dirt roads near Goldfield's southern en ...
Death Valley Albatross Plane Wreck On the day of January 24th, 1952, a Grumman SA-16 Albatross took off from Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho bound for San Diego carrying a 6 total occupants. The one-day, non-stop flight was part of a classified training mission supporting CIA Cold War operations. As night engulfed the skies around 6:30pm, one of the Albatross' dual engines gave out. Losing elevation and velocity, the pilot gave the order for the plane to be evacuated. All of those onboard would jump from the rear door and land about 14 miles north of Death Valley's Furnace Creek with no injuries, while the now-unman ...
Milky Way above the arcade building, Rock-A-Hoola Waterpark, California A barren oasis in the Mojave Desert may be more popular in abandonment than it was during its tenuous incarnations. Off of Interstate 15 between Los Angeles and Las Vegas in the town of Newberry Springs sits the remains of "the first waterpark in America". Originally opened in 1962 by Bob Byers as a manmade lake and recreation area built atop a spring and named after his wife, Lake Dolores came to feature several attractions based around the water. A set of slides where riders would slide down and glide across the lake on 'floats', two V-shaped metal s ...
The Future Ghost of Hinkley, California after contaminating the town's drinking water, PG&E begins buying out the residents, resulting in a town of abandoned and demolished buildings. Hinkley, California, an incorporated community located about 14 miles northwest of the city of Barstow, was a quiet desert town boasting a few businesses, including a grocery store and gas station, and had one school serving the population. Today, however, Hinkley is a ghost town in-the-making, as many of its residents have left, and the population continues to shrink as the few remaining businesses close. This shift is due to the contamination of ...